


Home From Hellgates

by imaginary_golux



Category: Redwall Series - Brian Jacques
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-08 04:30:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4290897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Romsca is unexpectedly given a choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home From Hellgates

Romsca can see Hellgates before her, can see the nameless creatures with their whips and chains coming out to claim her, and knows that whatever good she may have done before she died, she did as much evil many times again, and she deserves the torments which await her.

And then a mouse with a sword appears from nowhere, between her and Hellgates, and he glows like the sun at noon. The nameless creatures fall back in fear, and his sword is like a beacon which they dare not approach.

The mouse turns to Romsca, and smiles.

“For that you were kind to one of my own, I will give you a choice, Romsca of the sea,” he says, his voice like a great bell.

“What choice?” asks Romsca, almost more terrified of the mouse than of the nameless creatures and their whips. “And who are you?”

“I am a friend,” the mouse says. “My name would mean little to you indeed. But as to the choice,” he turns and points with his sword, and Romsca turns to look. There is a dark road, and a long one, stretching away from Hellgates.

“You may take that road. It is long, and hard, and there are many ways to fall from it, but if you are lucky it may lead you at last to the Dark Forest, and there will be welcome for you there,” the mouse says.

“Or?” says Romsca, because the ferret captain of a pirate crew never takes the first offer.

“Or you may go back into the world, in a new body, and for the kindness you have shown, I will send you to my own home, to the Abbey whose Abbot you saved. You may be good, or you may be bad, but you will have another chance, at least. But I cannot stand between you and Hellgates again; whatever you choose now, it will be your own path you walk.”

“The Abbot was kind to me,” Romsca says slowly, “and I do not think that a child in his Abbey would come again to Hellgates at the last. Send me there, friend, and let me try.”

“So be it,” says the mouse, and his sword flashes bright as sunrise, and Romsca knows no more.

*

“Good morning, Dibbuns!” sings the Badgermum, and baby Romsca waves her little paws and coos up at the enormous creature cradling her. “And good morning to _you_ , little mouseling,” the Badgermum says. “What a good child you are.”


End file.
